Friday

NEWARK, Ohio — Newark elementary schools will participate in a national school health program aimed at keeping kids healthy through smart technology just in time for flu season.

All of the district’s seven elementary schools were selected to participate in the FLUency program, a national health program created by Kinsa, a San Francisco-based health technology company that manufactures smart thermometers.

Through a partnership with Kinsa and Lysol, the disinfectant company, all elementary school families, teachers and staff are eligible to receive a free smart thermometer. The FDA-approved thermometers, which retail for about $20, connect to an app that not only tracks a child’s illness, but also allows parents to see what illnesses are going around school. A coupon for Lysol products is included with thermometer.

“These thermometers help track and reduce the spread of illness in classrooms,” said Nita Nehru, a Kinsa spokeswoman. “Having more information about what is going around your children’s classes allows parents to make smarter decisions about your family’s health.”

While the app doesn’t diagnose a child based solely on temperature, Nehru said parents can input other important information about their child’s illness, including symptoms, any medicine administered and a doctor’s diagnosis. Parents can also get recommendations for treatment options, including how soon a child should see a doctor.

Parents who receive a thermometer join a group in the Kinsa app of their child’s school. Information shared in the app is doesn’t identify specific students, and is analyzed and aggregated by Kinsa to create a report on the health of the school. The report shows how many children have been sick in the last week, what symptoms are going around the school and what grade levels are being affected.

Kinsa uses the aggregate data from its network of users to create what it calls an “illness signal,” which comprises indicators that represent the percent of an area’s population afflicted with an illness. These anonymous signals help reduce the spread of illness, which Nehru said is the company’s main goal.

The district hasn’t received any push-back from parents with concerns about sharing personal information, said Seth Roy, district spokesman.

“We don’t receive any identifiable information from people who use the app,” Roy said.

School nurses also have the option to write notes to parents using the app, something Olivia Haas takes full advantage of as Cherry Valley Elementary School’s nurse. Haas, who has used a Kinsa thermometer for years, applied for the FLUency program last year just for her school.

Last year, 156 thermometers were distributed at Cherry Valley Elementary School. The program was a success, with Cherry Valley having one of the highest participation rates of all schools in the program, Nehru said.

Newark City Schools are among the approximately 500 schools participating nationally in the program. Haas said more than 11,000 schools applied to the program.

Haas said one reason the program was so successful last year is because of the number of parents using the app.

“The more people that are able to participate, the more accurate the data is for the health of the building,” Haas said. “It helps us keep a better gauge of what’s going on in the district.”

That became apparent last year during flu season, Haas said.

The Ohio Department of Health reported more than 17,000 flu-related hospitalization cases for the 2017-18 flu season, a five-year record high. While the other district elementary schools saw a lot of absences because of the flu, Haas said Cherry Valley didn’t see a huge dip in attendance.

Licking County Health Department officials said they can’t confirm that Cherry Valley’s higher flu-season attendance was due to the use of Kinsa thermometers, but Haas said she’s confident they played a role.

“You can keep your kids healthier when you have a more-accurate view of what’s going around,” Haas said.

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